Ink and Vein

A couple of weeks ago, I fired a client.

I needed the pay (if you want to/ are able to help with this, check out my GoFundMe) so that part was a bit stressful. Yet, it was work that took up much more of my mental energy than it did my time, and it stopped being worth it.

Aside from just not wanting to work with this particular client anymore, for reasons I don’t need to list here, I hoped this move would free me up to do better work for other clients, and to actually work on my book and other creative projects.

I still find myself spinning round and round trying to keep track, keep up.

This week, while meeting with a client, I missed a shift at the bookstore. I completely forgot that I was covering for someone, and my error wasn’t discovered until my shift relief came in 2.5 hours after the store was supposed to open. I’m keeping up with marketing tasks, but it feels like I’m only doing the minimum. I still haven’t finished rewriting our training manual, that I was confident I could complete last summer (of 2023). Former students are waiting on materials I promised them, and some are waiting on replies to communication that are months overdue.

Creative collaborations are blossoming (keep your eyes open for more news on this). Personal relationships are shifting, in a mix of painful and pleasing ways.

And my book. My book is there, too.

I’m not doing well turning and turning and turning, spinning to each part of my life that needs my attention.

I’m just so tired.

I feel like a broken record because I always seem to be tired.

I write in my journal, regularly, that I need to get my shit together, and I’m tired of seeing the words form under my pen nib.

I’ve tried reverse psychology, telling myself I’m full of energy, and that works until I can’t sleep, and then the reality catches up with me again.

I tell myself there are others with so much more responsibility, with even busier lives, with more struggles than mine. They’re pushing through, they’re managing, and with so much more grace than I am.

I’m frustrated with myself, angry, even, that I haven’t managed my time better, that I’m not doing better, that I keep allowing myself to be distracted, that I keep abandoning myself.

Kati, my writing mentor, suggested I try feeling my feelings, leaning into the anger. The funny thing is, I think of myself as an angry person, and many who know me would agree that I should be crowned Queen of Rage. I’m angry about injustice, about genocide, about poverty, about capitalism. I’m angry about so many things, but Kati made me stop and think: when do I actually allow myself to be angry on my own behalf?

I’m not sure I do. I let myself be angry at systems, and frustrated with myself, but I pull back on the anger I have towards other people when it is on my own behalf. I turn it back on myself, I stuff it down, I don’t feel it, really.

The irony: that’s why I’m an angry person. Because I don’t let myself actually feel or process my anger.

So I’m spinning round and round in this cycle of frustration, anger, sadness… and it’s exhausting.

My emotions won’t stay stuffed down like they used to; I’m basically always on the verge of tears. Some have told me to up my meds, or try a different anti-depressant, because being emotional the way that I am isn’t normal. I’m not really sure what “normal” is supposed to look like, but I do know that having emotional responses isn’t abnormal.

Writing this book, this memoir, is an act of emotional archeology. I’m digging up long buried experiences, long buried emotions, and in the process feeling them again—perhaps feeling them fully for the first time.

All of this is difficult, and draining. It’s also hopeful.

As I pull up these old emotions and replay the memories, there’s the potential to release them. Sort of like when you get song lyrics stuck in your head, and the only way to get them out is to listen to the record again so you can turn the record over and hear the next song.